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Environmental educator & photographer
Huon Valley, Tasmania
Heather Elson
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environmental Photography
The fungi found in Tasmania seem to come from a magical world with their amazing variety of colours, forms and habits. From the beautifully blue, but delicate and fragile Pixie Parasol (Mycena interrupta) mushroom, to the alien looking Anemone stinkhorn (Aseroe rubra), Tasmanian fungi perform cruical roles in the ecosystem through recycling of organic matter, exchanging nutrients with native flora and providing food and/or habitat for insects, invertebrates, birds, reptiles and mammals. Tasmania's Gondwanan heritage and diverse ecosystems carved from climatic, physical and biological impacts, influences the flora, fauna and fungi, to be found in Tasmania.
The photos of Tasmanian fungi below shows a small selection of the beautiful fungi that can be found in Tasmania. All of the images below are photographed on just a small 9 acre property of wet schlerophyll forest located in the Huon Valley in southern Tasmania and represents a mere fraction of what awaits be discovered!
Environmental
education & Resources
The Tasmanian Fungi in a Box - an interactive STEM learning kit for children using the innovative STEAM educational toolkit from Museum in a Box as part of a world wide pilot. Available for free download. Click here for free fungi education kit and to read more
Wasted
Exhibition
In 2018 a series of lights made from recycling thousands of locally sourced plastic lids was created for display and sustainability education.
3D & 360 Fungi photography
Exploring fungi as 3D images for research, education and artistic purposes. Get an idea of how to get started with photographing fungi in 3D and in 360 images. For more info click here
Cygnet Library
Community Garden Project
Working alongside other volunteers to create an innovative community garden project incorporating literacy, environmental sustainability and community art. Click here to read more
Workshops and Fungi forays:
Would you like a workshop or talk for your community event?
That's great! Send an email and we can chat about what kind of workshop you would like. Fees for workshops (and free talks), are on a case by case basis and any fees are minimised where possible. Talks can be done all year.
Bio
I enjoy sharing my passion for fungi and the environment through
photography and education. I provide fungi talks for local community
organisations, organise fungi events and help promote the work of
scientists. Along with writing the occasional local fungi article, I maintain
a Facebook page - the Huon Valley Fungi Club to promote local events.
I Admin for the TasFungi Facebook group and created the TasFungi website.
Whilst working for Australian natural history photographer, Steve Parish OAM, I enjoyed identifying flora and fauna featured in his beautiful imagery for his publications, learnt about photography, and was the Environmental Officer integrating environmental sustainability measures into the publishing business.
More recently, I was fortunate to receive an opportunity to photograph a portion of the 2000 fungi type specimens held at the Mycology Herbarium in Orange, NSW along with working with the people at Museum in a Box to create a free resource the Tasmanian Fungi in a Box educational kit.
I've been working in libraries and education for 10 years, hold a degree in Environmental Science and am currently finishing a Masters in Information studies.
A perfect day is spent scrambling over mossy logs on a 9 acre property in the Huon Valley in search of fungi, whilst having witty conversations with Currawongs and Lyrebirds or showing others about the amazing world of fungi that surrounds us :)
Workshops and Fungi forays:
Would you like a fungi workshop or talk for your community event or education group?
That's great! Send an email and let me know what kind of workshop you would like. Topics range from Fungi and your garden, fungi identification, fungi ecology, fungi in our culture, mycophagy, mycoremediation +more and can be as interactive as you would like.
Fees for workshops (and free talks), are on a case by case basis and any fees are minimised where possible.
Talks can be done all year.
